Haunted Green Bay

by Timothy Freiss

Overview

Green Bay has always been a city with a fierce sense of tradition complemented by a friendly atmosphere. Those qualities seem to attract not only living visitors but also spirits of the dead.

Tour the city's haunted past with Tim Freiss as he follows the trail of the tragic, the inexplicable and the just plain spooky. From the desecration of the father of Wisconsin's burial spot to the winery that was a stop on the Underground Railroad to the nightclub haunted by a bullet-riddled love triangle, Haunted Green Bay stirs up the kind of history that keeps us awake a little bit longer once the lights are out.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781596299856
Publisher:	Arcadia Publishing SC
Publication date:	09/24/2010
Series:	Haunted America
Pages:	128
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.31(d)

About the Author

Tim Freiss is the owner and operator of Green Bay Ghost Tours in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

EARLY HISTORY

The first European explorer who was credited with discovering this great state of Wisconsin was a French man named Jean Nicolet from Quebec, Canada. In 1634, he landed on the shores of Red Banks, which is located on the northern outskirts of modern-day Green Bay. Nicolet was known for always dressing in bright-colored clothing and carrying two pistols with the intent to gain respect from the Indian tribes he would sometimes encounter on his travels.

Nicolet did gain the respect and friendship of the Winnebago tribe that was native to this area. The Winnebagos helped Nicolet in the exploration of the land and Fox River. He would travel the Fox River until it began to widen, which convinced him he had found a passage to the South Sea that led to China. Nicolet returned to Quebec, Canada, to inform the people of his amazing discovery. Of course, it wasn't the South Sea that Nicolet had discovered, but if only he would have traveled just a little bit farther he would have been credited for finding the upper Mississippi as well. Nicolet died by drowning in 1642 on the Sillary River.

One little-known fact about the state of Wisconsin is that it is considered the most haunted state in the nation, and Green Bay certainly has its fair share of spirits that want to stick around. Green Bay is often referred to as a big city with a small-town feel. It is the third-largest city in Wisconsin, right after Milwaukee and our state capital, Madison. When you visit Green Bay, you will notice there are no huge skyscrapers that cut the skyline or a Starbucks on every corner but rather a community that is friendly, generous and one with hometown pride. It is also a town that is steeped in tradition and, of course, football. Green Bay is often called by its nickname, Titletown. This nickname was acquired by the number of Super Bowl titles that the Packers earned. Green Bay has a population of 102,313 and is growing, both in the living and the dead.

Green Bay offers many recreational attractions such as Bay Beach Amusement Park, where guests can ride the rides for $0.25 to $0.50 each. There is also a wildlife sanctuary where you can feed geese and ducks as well as the new zoo where you can see a great variety of animals and even feed a giraffe. And, of course, there is Lambeau Field, home of the Green Bay Packers! Green Bay is a great, family-friendly city, and I am proud to call it my home.

CHAPTER 2

FORT HOWARD GHOST

This story is about the tragic loss of three lives on one cold, Wisconsin winter day. It involves a murder that was considered even colder. The story begins during the mid-1800s, back when Green Bay was actually two separate cities. The west side was the city of Fort Howard, named after the military base that was being used at the time. The east side was the actual city of Green Bay. The two cities merged as one on April 2, 1895, and from what I have read, it wasn't a happy time for the citizens of either city. The merger was thought of more as a takeover and, in fact, the east and west sides of Green Bay still carry a mild rivalry to this day.

Our story actually begins in 1831 at the old Fort Howard military base and involves a young officer by the name of Lieutenant Amos B. Foster; a soldier under his command, Private Patrick Doyle; and a beautiful young local girl, Miss Bailey, whom Foster was engaged to marry. Lieutenant Foster was born in New Hampshire in 1805. He graduated from West Point military academy in 1828 and was stationed at Fort Howard military base in the Fifth Infantry Unit in 1831. Upon his arrival at Fort Howard, Lieutenant Foster noticed one disturbing trend. There seemed to be quite a high intoxication rate among the soldiers stationed at the base. One such soldier was a Private Patrick Doyle. Private Doyle seemed to like his liquor a little too much and it became clear that he was not a fun sort of guy when he was drunk. He became loud and belligerent and didn't seem to know when enough was enough. Doyle also had a quick temper and that mixed with alcohol was a deadly combination. After experiencing this behavior several times, Lieutenant Foster decided to have Private Doyle arrested and confined for what we would today call drunk and disorderly conduct. While serving his time at the guardhouse, or jail, Doyle convinced the guard on duty one night to escort him over to the officer's quarters where Lieutenant Foster was residing. He said he wanted to discuss the terms of his punishment and possibly negotiate a lighter sentence. The discussion between Foster and Doyle didn't last long before it escalated into a full-blown argument between the two men. It got so out of hand that, rather than calmly talking out a mutual agreement, the argument turned to violence that resulted in the murder of Lieutenant Amos Foster on February 7, 1832. Doyle, blinded by his own anger about not getting some leeway on a shorter sentence, ended up grabbing a rifle from the guard who had escorted him and shot Foster, striking him in the heart and killing him instantly. Private Doyle was tried and convicted of murder in a civilian court and was sentenced to a much harsher punishment than the one he had previously been serving — death by hanging. Doyle was hanged just outside of the Fort Howard walls on October 15, 1832. It was one of only two hangings in the entire history of Wisconsin.

In the aftermath of the murder of Lieutenant Foster, Miss Bailey, having lost her love and hopes for her future, reportedly became violently insane and spent the remainder of her life in mental institutions.

The first sightings of Lieutenant Foster's ghost would come several years later in 1847 when the family of J.C. Delany would occupy the building formerly known as the officer's quarters. Very soon after moving into the building, Mrs. Delany suddenly awakened one night, terrified to find the figure of a man bending over her, watching her while she slept. Mr. Delany thoroughly searched the house for the man she claimed was there, but he found no one. The next day, Mr. and Mrs. Delany talked to some of the soldiers, recounting the story from the previous night about the man in her bedroom. There were still some soldiers stationed at the base that were there when Lieutenant Foster was murdered and they remembered him well. To the surprise of the soldiers, Mrs. Delany gave an exact description of Lieutenant Foster. The most remarkable thing about her experience was that Mrs. Delany knew nothing about the story of Lieutenant Foster or how he had died. After hearing the story and knowing that the man she saw was no longer among the living, Mrs. Delany ended up seeing Lieutenant Foster two more times in that house. This experience frightened her so much that she refused to continue to live in the house any longer. Due to the story of the ghost, the house stood abandoned until the closing of the base in 1859. All of the buildings were sold off and some were relocated as far away as New Jersey, but most stayed here in Green Bay and are currently located at Heritage Hill State Park. Unfortunately, the officer's quarters had to be destroyed due to lack of care, and that was the end of Lieutenant Foster's ghost.

The military uniform that Lieutenant Foster was wearing on the night of his murder is held today by Neville Public Museum in Green Bay. It still has bloodstains on it and is the only uniform of that time, known as a frock, still in existence today.

CHAPTER 3

GREEN BAY'S HAUNTED PAST

It was a grave discovery. Whenever I pass a cemetery or visit the resting place of my parents, it often makes me truly think of my own mortality and that someday I, too, will experience this same fate. All cemeteries have a spiritual aspect to them, and to address them in any other way would be wrong. They are a place of reflection, remembrance and a connection to the ones we love and miss. Cemeteries are holy places deserving of reverence and respect. It's hard to imagine someone desecrating such an important place as a cemetery, especially over money. Unfortunately that's exactly what took place to one of the oldest-known cemeteries in town — possibly in the state — that was located where Green Bay's downtown district is today.

This area was referred to as La Baye Burial place dating back to the 1740s or possibly even earlier. The name was given by the earliest French settlers, whose bodies, along with Native Americans, now lay under the city streets of Green Bay. The exact location of these burial sites is hard to know. Unlike other cemeteries in the city, this one was abandoned and erased from city maps. Research done through newspaper articles about the discovery of bodies place the cemetery as located under several possible streets. The streets covering this area are from Washington Street to Adams Street and from Crooks Street to Chicago Street. For well over two hundred years until its close in 1838, this cemetery was the burial place for several family members of the Potawatomie, Menominee, Ojibwa, Ho-Chunk, Miami, Sauk and Fox tribes, along with French nobility who died here during a war in 1733.

The Father of Wisconsin and his father are buried here, along with Kinananotamn, the daughter of the Menominee chief who owned all of this surrounding area. There is also Joseph Leroy, who was the husband of Kinananotamn, and builder of the oldest-standing building in the state, which is currently located at Green Bay's historical state park, Heritage Hill. One of the men involved in desecrating this once spiritual place, solely for the love of money, was a wealthy businessman from New York named John Jacob Astor, who had made his fortune in the fur-trading business. Astor, who owned the American Fur Trade Co., was a shrewd and cunning businessman. He had successfully lobbied Congress to give his company a monopoly on the western fur trade by making it illegal for anyone other than an American citizen to engage in the fur trade on American soil. At this time the American government viewed the local citizens living on their own homelands as foreigners and forbade them to carry on with the main source of local revenue in Wisconsin — the fur trade. The result was predictable.

The other men involved were Arthur Neville, who was mayor of Green Bay at that time; his father J.C. Neville, who was a former mayor of Green Bay; and eleven other prominent wealthy men of the area. Together they built and owned what was known as the Green Bay Water Company, which was later purchased by the city in 1920. The waterworks pumping station was constructed directly on top of the old La Baye cemetery. On October 21, 1886, there was an article written in the local paper about the waterworks grave discovery while digging trenches on Adams Street. It stated that the skulls and other bones found were in a fair state of preservation and pieces of decayed wood indicated that the bodies were in coffins. The bones were discovered less than two feet below the surface, indicating that possibly three to four feet of soil covering the graves had been washed away to the river. A total of fifteen graves were found.

At first the bones were carelessly thrown out of the trench with the earth, but when the news got out, boxes were provided and some of the surrounding residents carefully gathered the remains and placed them into these boxes. The Catholic priests then made sure that these remains were properly reburied in a nearby cemetery in the town of Allouez. The rest of the remains were left buried in the ground only to be built over with roads and buildings, with not so much as a marker signifying the placement of this sacred cemetery. One of the lingering questions that comes to mind is, whatever happened to the original tombstones that marked the placements of these hidden graves? One theory is that John Astor had them removed and thrown into the Fox River. But after reading the article of 1886 it's more likely they were washed away with the soil into the river. There have been stories told that, every once in a while, some of these tombstones have washed up on the shore badly worn and only recognizable by their tombstonelike shape.

Today there is an organization called the La Baye historical research committee that, along with the mayor's beautification committee, is establishing a trust fund to purchase some of the land on the cemetery site in the hope of setting up a monument listing the names of all the known persons that have been buried there. This desecrated cemetery is believed to be the reason for several haunted buildings located on Washington Street in downtown Green Bay. The first of these building is located at 401 South Washington Street and is currently the South End Bar. Upon arrival at the South End Bar, you can't help but take notice of the unique exterior of this building. Its rustic siding of half-cut logs arranged in diamond-shaped patterns is a stark contrast to the brick and concrete exteriors of the surrounding buildings. When you enter the building, you notice there are no overdone fancy décor, no lighted dance floor and no loud techno music blasting out your eardrums — just an old-time comfortable bar. These are great taverns for just having some drinks after work with your friends or for enjoying a great homemade-style burger.

When I met the couple that currently owns the tavern, they related that most of the poltergeist-type haunting activity takes place either in the kitchen, located at the east end of the bar, or in the hallway storage room. The husband stated that there are a lot of objects in the kitchen that seem to move around on their own, and typically you can hear the sound of plates smashing on the floor. Even though it gets to be a common occurrence, he still gets startled now and then when a plate or knife flies by his head. The wife told of having a terrifying experience involving the hallway storage room door. She had just gotten back to the tavern from a shopping trip to the store for soda. She propped open the door to the storage room and began grabbing the cases of soda, sliding them through the open doorway. She was in a bent-over position, focusing on the task at hand, when all of a sudden she felt the painful sting of the storage door striking the side of her head and pinning her between the doorjamb and the door. The pressure of the door felt like someone was pushing on it, but she couldn't see who it was. Finally after a few choice words and a "knock it off already," the door pressure let up; she pulled her head out and was ready to start screaming at whoever did this to her, but nobody was there. Now when dealing with the storage room doorway she makes a conscious effort to keep her head and body parts out of the way of a possible slamming door.

The next haunted building is just a few yards north at 403 South Washington Street and is currently vacant but used to be the Glory Days Bar and Grill Restaurant. This business, when it was open, was modeled in Packer football décor. Even the outside at that time was painted in the famed green and gold colors. This establishment not only had a banquet hall that was a favorite spot for wedding receptions and retirement parties — but it also was a favorite spot for poltergeist activity. The employees who worked there reported seeing glasses that moved on their own, dishes that smashed and a general feeling of bad karma. Maybe this is why they ended up closing?

Next stop, Ireland. Located farther north up the street and across at 234 South Washington Street stands a new hotel named St. Brendan's. It is on the same location where the city's bus terminal once stood. St. Brendan is the name of a saint from the 1600s who belonged to the second order of Irish saints, also known as the twelve apostles of Ireland. His influence was widespread both in Ireland and other regions such as Scotland, England, Wales, continental Europe, Germany and along the Baltic coast to the Gulf of Finland. His name even appeared on ocean maps throughout the centuries; during one of his voyages of the Atlantic Ocean, he was believed to have discovered America long before Columbus had. The hotel may be new but it was built in old-time style and charm. It has beautiful dark-stained hardwood wall panels throughout the front lobby and restaurant area, a fireplace in the dining room and stunning stained-glass windows, specially made in Germany. The stained glass is of a Celtic knot design. The lines of a Celtic knot are interwoven, the meaning being that so are we interwoven with all those around us. We continue on to eternity as others continue on to eternity inexorably wrapped up with all those who join us in this life and the next. Though each loop is individual, each loop cannot be separated from the whole. The meaning of this Celtic design rings true — we are all connected together between both the living and the dead, and that respect for others is most important whether they are above the ground or below it. The elevators and laundry room are the hot spots for the haunting activity here. Employees report that the elevators often like to run up and down between floors by themselves. The doors to the elevators open and close by themselves as well. In the laundry room, there are reports of soap bottles flying off of the shelves and a feeling of not being alone overtakes you.

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Haunted Green Bay"
by .
Copyright © 2010 Tim Freiss.
Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgements,
Introduction,
Early History,
Fort Howard Ghost,
Green Bay's Haunted Past,
Envy Nightclub,
Captain's Walk Winery,
The Story of Adele Brise,
Somewhere in Time Antiques,
Titletown Brewery,
National Railroad Museum,
Union Hotel,
YMCA,
Baird Creek,
Lawrence Cemetery,
The Lorelei Inn,
Regina's Seven Pillars,
Bay Beach Amusement Park,
The Gift Itself,
Bellin Building,
Cloud Nine,
Murder at the Golden Pheasant (Lee's Cantonese),
UWGB — St. Norbert's Dormitories,
The Haunted House,
The Cotton House,
Bibliography,
About the Author,